THE WESTERN BLUEBIRD. 
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blue is restricted to flight-feathers and rectrices, that of the male being brighter 
and bluer, that of the female duller and greener. In both sexes the back and 
scapular areas are brownish heavily and sharply streaked with white and the 
breast (jugulum, sides of breast, and sides) is dark sepia brown so _ heavily 
streaked with white as to appear “‘skeletonized.” Length of adults 6.50-7.00 
(165-177.8) ; wing 4.13 (105); tail 2.80 (71); bill .49 (12.5); tarsus .85 (21.5). 
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; rich blue and chestnut coloring of 
male; darker blue coloration of wings in female distinctive as compared with that 
of S. currucoides. 
Nesting.—N est: in cavities, natural or artificial, old woodpecker holes, hollow 
trees, stumps, posts, bird-boxes, etc., lined with grasses and, occasionally, string, 
feathers and the like. Eggs: 4-6, uniform pale blue. Av. size, .82 x .62 (20.8x 
15.7). Season: May-July; two broods. 
General Range.—Pacific coast district from Los Angeles County, California, 
to British Columbia, extending irregularly eastward in Oregon, Washington and 
British Columbia, and to Idaho and western Montana; south irregularly in winter 
as far as San Pedro Martir Mountains, L. C. 
Range in Washington.—Summer resident, of general distribution west of 
the Cascades, rare and local distribution (chiefly in heavily timbered sections) east 
of the mountains; casually resident in winter. 
Migrations.—S pring: c. March 1; East-side: Chelan, March 9, 1896; Con- 
connully, March 15, 1896; West-side: Seattle, March 6, 1889; March 5, 1891; 
Tacoma, Feb. 25, 1905. Fall: October. 
Authorities.—Sialia occidentalis, Townsend, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 
Volk VIL pt. II. 1837; 188. C&S. Lt. Rh. Dt. Kb. Ra. D?. Kk. J. B. E. 
Specimens.—U. of W. Proy. B. BN. 
MIU-MIU-MIU—nmiute you are, or next thing to it, you naughty little 
beauties! Why don’t you sing, as do your cousins across the Rockies? You 
bring spring with you, but you do not come shifting your “light load of song 
from post to post along the cheerless fence.” Is your beauty, then, so burden- 
some that you find it task enough to shift that? 
Alack-a-day! our Bluebird does not sing! You see, he comes from 
Mexican stock, Sialia mexicana, and since we will not let him talk Spanish, or 
Aztecan, or Zampeyan, he flits about silent in seven languages. Er—but— 
what’s this? Can we be mistaken? Here is what Dr. J. k. Townsend? says 
of the Western Bluebird: “Common on the Columbia River in the spring. 
It arrives from the south early in April, and about the first week in May com- 
mences building. * * * A flock of eight or ten of these birds visited the 
British fort on the Columbia, on a fine day in the winter of 1835. They con- 
fined themselves chiefly to the fences, occasionally flying to the ground and 
scratching among the snow for minute insects, the fragments of which were 
found in the stomachs of several which I killed. After procuring an insect 
a. Narrative (1839), p. 344. 
